Raw Deal: This is perhaps one of the best photographed films I've ever seen, and it also features a wonderfully haunting musical score (especially the music that plays over the dreamy voice overs). It's also an entry into film noir, a style/genre/whatever that I particularly enjoy. Yet its script is pretty terrible. The entire third act hinges on one character to reverse her opinion of the main character for no reason. Dialogue can be pretty heavy handed (like when a murder on the run is killed right in front of the main character, an escaped convict, and another character says right to him, "that could be you" as if it wasn't totally evident). In the end, it's beautiful to look at, but less well-constructed when the story is concerned.

The Green Hornet: A tonal mis-mash of a movie, it's occasionally (but rarely) fun. Most of the time, it's squandering a (mostly) terrific cast (except for Jay Chou, who is exceptional despite his weak English) and struggling to decide if it's a comedy, a drama, or some hybrid of the two. It never does figure that out. If there's a sequel, it needs a new set of writers and probably a new director, too (Gondry adds a disappointingly small touch of his usual whimsy to the proceedings).

The Fabulous Baker Boys: 4/5
-I realize Jeff Bridges has most of the fame (especially these days), but I think it's worth mentioning that his brother, Beau is a pretty damn good actor, too. In fact I think he outshone his brother throughout most of this.
Stray Dog: 4/5
-Not the best Kurosawa movie I've ever seen, but it was still pretty freaking amazing.

Following: Christopher Nolan's super low-budget debut feature came and went when it was briefly released, but it made enough of an impression to get him the money to make Memento, and the rest is history. And it is a pretty good little thriller (unlike his later work, it's tightly edited to, at a scant 71 minutes) with some beautiful black and white cinematography. I like the way Nolan presents events out of chronological order--it creates meaning, suspense, and mystery in the mind of the audience that wouldn't exist if the story was presented in a more conventional manner.

The ending has a few holes, however. The police conclude that Bill must have totured his girlfriend for the combination to the old man's safe, killed her, and robbed the old man (during which he fought and wounded a man who stumbled across him). The problem is, Bill breaks into the old man's bar, finds the money in the safe, spends an awful long time trying to figure out how he's going to take it without a bag, is interrupted by the man who he wounds, and runs out of there. Afterwards, he finds out he's been duped, so he goes to his girlfriend's flat, confronts her, then he leaves, and finally Cobb shows up, first talking to her, and then finally torturing and killing her. Her time of death and the time of the robbery just don't line up. The movie wants to suggest that Cobb has executed the perfect crime, but things don't quite add up. Any good solicitor should be able to get Bill off.

The Road to Tomorrow: An excruciating and incoherent DeMille silent picture, it's no wonder this one isn't on home video. Part of Evangelical Christian propaganda, part reincarnation fantasy, the film's cosmology is a mess, and, worse, the film is pretty boring (outside of the staging of the collision of two trains, which is pretty spectacular). Worth seeing only for DeMille buffs.

Lethal Weapon: This is still the classic buddy cop movie which has been endlessly emulated and sequel-ized. What's most surprising about revisiting it, however, is how little plot there is (and how hard it is to follow the plot). It has something to do with a group of ex-CIA importing heroin from southeast Asia. There's a few related subplots to this that go nowhere, too.

But those aren't the reason the film is so popular or successful--Lethal Weapon works because of the two lead characters. And, especially in the director's cut, it's all about the characters. I don't think there's a word of plot in the first 45 minutes (at least none that matters), but there's plenty of material where Danny Glover deals with aging and Mel Gibson deals with depression and a death wish. And those are the two things the film is really about. There's just some nonsense involving a nonsensical fistfight with Gary Busey before it can get there.

It's really not a horrible film despite what you may have seen from critics. Again, why do people listen to them? Is it an Oscar winner, no. Is it deserving of a 5% score on RottenTomatoes...HELL NO!!

It's a straight forward period piece with some modest yet effective CGI. A few cliche lines but they are delivered with honest intent. The cinematography was nice, except the dessert scenes, those felt the most CGI'd imo. If you saw the trailer then you know going in that the "witch" isn't innocent. There is an interesting twist in the 3rd act. Not a "sixth sense" twist mind you but they do alter things a bit from where we had thought we were headed.

Because they think they might know what they're talking about? When 95% of any group of people see a movie and give it a thumbs down, people take notice (it has an IMDB score of 5.7, while Metacritic's agglommerated rating is 28/100, and its CinemaScore rating was C+, which is terrible).

Because they think they might know what they're talking about? When 95% of any group of people see a movie and give it a thumbs down, people take notice (it has an IMDB score of 5.7, while Metacritic's agglommerated rating is 28/100, and its CinemaScore rating was C+, which is terrible).

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I don't. Glad I didn't.
Had I listened to the "consensus" then I wouldn't have seen Tourist either.

Do you give any credit to what "the people" think?
Yahoo Users = B
Box Office Mojo =B

Well, I think I have my first guilty pleasure of the year because I actually enjoyed this film. It's done by Trey Parker (The guy who does South Park) and it's pretty much what I expected from him. The plot wasn't bad, and the music ("The Sky is blue, and all the leaves are Green, The Sun's as warm as a Baked Potato. I think I know Precisely what I mean when I say it's a Shpakoinkle Day") is catchy and happy as hell. It's stupid, but a nice time waster to smile and I actually enjoyed it more than I probably should have.

3. Buried (2010) ✭✭✭✭
Hooooly crap this is a good movie. It's a shame Lionsgate didn't give this movie a wide release. Ryan Reynolds spends 90 minutes in a box, and it's one of the most intense movie experiences of my life. I was glued to the TV. I highly recommend you go rent this movie today.

Cannibal! The Musical is great, and I love that it couldn't get a place at Sundance but was eventually picked up by Lloyd Kaufman of Troma Films.

As for "Season of The Witch" and "The Tourist", I'd like to think I'm capable of thinking for myself when it comes to a movie, book, album or anything along those subjective lines. I can think of several films I loved that were roundly unpopular with both critics and viewers ("Masked and Anonymous" is a good one--I've met perhaps five people in the last six years who liked that movie as much as I did). With films I watch the trailer, do a little reading and make an informed judgment. Sometimes I still surprise myself by liking or disliking the movie in spite of what I imagine I'm going to get. I do my best to go into any film with an open mind, but it's usually impossible for me to go in with absolutely no expectations.

With "Season of The Witch" I see a cheesy rip-off of "The Seventh Seal". I could wind up enjoying the movie whenever I get around to seeing it, but quite frankly I just wasn't impressed by anything I've seen in the trailers. The same goes for "The Tourist". It looks like a really boring couple of hours where everyone is just phoning in a disinterested performance and going home. Indeed Angelina Jolie all but admitted that she accepted the role so she could take her kids on a nice vacation.

I could be wrong about that one, too.

I'll probably give it a shot, but I do believe there's some merit to my instincts when it comes to whether or not I'm going to enjoy a movie. Again I try to give everything a certain allowance for being able to surprise me, but I can only extend that allowance so far.

^^^^
You are doing your movie watching like me it seems.
Watch a trailer. Read an interview. Do a little homework.
If you decide to not see it, it's cause YOU decided not to. NOT because Ebert, Ropert, NYT or wherever said it wasn't worth it.

I haven't seen "The Seventh Seal" so I can't relate to that but I'm going to put it in my Netflix queue right now.

3. Inception - B. This was a very good movie but not one of Nolan's best in my opinion. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to have shootouts in someone's dreamscape no matter how they framed it in the plot. I felt myself wanting to pull a Morbo: "Dreams do not work that way!" This film gets a lot of praise for being original but to me it seemed kind of derivative, pulling elements from The Matrix and Solaris, or any number of other dream versus reality movies that have been made over the years. A solid action film with some interesting plot elements (the dream within a dream thing was neat), but ultimately it didn't live up to my somewhat elevated expectations about it.

SOME don't. You seemed to give alot of credit to what RT Critics or Metacritic would say. Do you let that supercede what you know about your own tastes in movies?

Some things a professionals knowledge is needed on.
A Home inspection
A cracked piston
For some maybe your taxes

Movies are subjective and no one should know better about what you(ie anybody) are likely to like than you. It maybe why I see more bad movies, imo, on Netflix cause something didn't really grab me in the trailer. Likewise it's why I'm likely to see more movies I think are good. My own judgement rarely lets me down in regards to my tastes.